Editorial: On spending, Gates echoes Eisenhower

Wednesday

May 12, 2010 at 12:01 AMMay 12, 2010 at 12:17 PM

Defense Secretary Robert Gates used the anniversary of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's victory in Europe to illustrate his most prescient speech. On leaving the White House in 1960, Eisenhower had predicted that what he dubbed the "military-industrial complex" would, if left unchecked, gobble up an ever-increasing share of the federal budget.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates used the anniversary of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's victory in Europe to illustrate his most prescient speech. On leaving the White House in 1960, Eisenhower had predicted that what he dubbed the "military-industrial complex" would, if left unchecked, gobble up an ever-increasing share of the federal budget.

The establishment, for the first time, of a large, permanent U.S. military force was necessitated by the Cold War, Eisenhower said, warning it would create pressures for overspending and bureaucratic bloat.

Speaking Saturday at the Eisenhower Library in Kansas, Gates said that since Sept. 11, 2001, the base Defense budget has nearly doubled and that's without counting the off-budget billions spent fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

That includes health costs, which he said are "eating the Defense Department alive," rising from $19 billion to $50 billion over the last decade. Health care inflation has pinched the budgets of families, private businesses and other parts of government as well, and they've had to adjust. Gates said he'd never scrimp on care for "wounded warriors," but noted that healthy veterans well into second careers in the private sector are still choosing taxpayer-provided health care because it's so much less expensive than employee benefits. Yet proposals for even modest increases in premiums and co-pays for veterans and military retirees are routinely killed in Congress.

Overhead makes up 40 percent of the Defense budget, Gates said, and even when the force structure was reduced in the '90s, the number of civilian and military management layers grew. Two decades after the end of the Cold War, we still have more than 40 generals, admirals or their civilian equivalents stationed in Europe.

While the private sector has flattened management structures and empowered employees on the line, the Pentagon has done the opposite, Gates said. He estimates that an order from him goes through 30 layers of management before reaching an "action officer" up from 17 layers under his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld. A request for a dog-handling team in Afghanistan must go through five four-star headquarters for approval.

Even when the Pentagon tries to cut wasteful spending, defense industry lobbyists and their friends in Congress stand in the way. Gates singled out the alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, a program the military considers unnecessary and expensive. But because GE plans to build the engine in Lynn, the Massachusetts delegation including Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown are fighting to keep it alive.

Politicians may draw applause by promising a limitless commitment to defense, but responsible leaders must ask tough questions. "Should we really be up in arms over a temporary projected shortfall of about 100 Navy and Marine strike fighters relative to the number of carrier wings, when America's military possesses more than 3,200 tactical combat aircraft of all kinds?" Gates asked. "Does the number of warships we have and are building really put America at risk when the U.S. battle fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined, 11 of which belong to allies and partners? Is it a dire threat that by 2020 the United States will have only 20 times more advanced stealth fighters than China?"

Gates pledged to reduce overhead and hold down spending in the budgets he prepares, pursuing "root and branch" changes in the way the Pentagon spends that can be sustained over time. But he'll need support.

"What is required going forward is not more study. Nor do we need more legislation," he said. "What it takes is the political will and willingness, as Eisenhower possessed, to make hard choices choices that will displease powerful people both inside the Pentagon and out."

Gates appointed by a Republican president, held over by a Democrat has earned respect inside and outside the Pentagon, on both sides of the partisan divide. Like Eisenhower, he has the standing to fight waste without being branded as soft on defense. He'll need those resources for the battles ahead, and we hope he'll stick around long enough to succeed.

He has a great ally in the general who defeated Nazi Germany 65 years ago, who proclaimed, "I say the patriot today is the fellow who can do the job with less money."

The MetroWest (Mass.) Daily News

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